The Scottish Government’s contested smacking ban is back in the news. Some hot takes are more welcome than others.

Critics of the policy – which if brought into law would remove the legal defence of “justifiable assault” available to parents and caregivers – claim a smacking ban risks criminalising parents and placing “reasonable chastisement” within the realm of abuse.

I do have sympathy with sincere concerns about the criminalisation of parents.

When laws are changed progressively to reflect ethical shifts in society, many inevitably find themselves sitting precariously on the faultline between the old and the new.

When belting children was outlawed in schools, many teachers – perhaps a little too liberal with this form of “reasonable chastisement” – probably had some sleepless nights.

The discomfort of being asked to reconsider past behaviour and attitudes – once regarded as uncontroversial – as potentially harmful in the blinding glare of a heated public conversation, can rouse a defensiveness that makes us unwilling to see the bigger picture. I experienced this myself as the #metoo movement erupted into the public mind.

The ethics of smacking have been pondered for millennia. The Greek-Roman biographer Plutarch grappled with it in the first century, inadvertently revealing his own ethical blind spots in the process.

“This also I assert, that children ought to be led to honourable practices by means of encouragement and reasoning”, he mused, “and most certainly not by blows or ill-treatment, for it surely is agreed that these are fitting rather for slaves than for the free-born.”

This is a perfect example of a seemingly thinking person being absolutely correct and also completely blindsided by the customs and conventions of the time in which they live. Plutarch was an advocate of smacking bans – and slavery.

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Most of us exhibit similar contradictions in our thinking that require humility to resolve.

Where this debate is concerned, the most obvious inconsistency can be found in those making dogmatic assertions, straight from the pages of the New Testament (hardly a Bible of progressive values) that smacking is God’s gift to parents and that politicians have no right to take it away.

Respectfully, I’d sooner take my chances with a democratically elected government than the questionable wisdom of the Abrahamic faiths which have historically dictated the terms of adult-child relations.

“It never did me any harm” is a popular argument for smacking too but judging by the permanent scowls and furrows of worry on the faces of many who make it, I’m not so sure.

There exists no evidence that children of a certain age possess the ability to discern between a skelp on the bum or a slap in the face.

Any time I was “chastised” as a kid it was by an adult who had lost their temper. That goes for times when I’ve felt like “chastising” my own child.

The act of smacking often happens at the junction between emotional stress and a momentary loss of control and is then retrofit with a face-saving parental justification. Get real.

Think about it like this: What’s the worst possible outcome of not smacking your child? If physical discipline is about teaching them a lesson, what are we trying to convey by striking them that cannot be expressed in some other way?

I do not sit in judgment of parents who have smacked their kids, nor those who may in future.

But in a civilised society characterised by personal liberty, I can think of no freedom more fundamental than that of a child – on a fragile developmental trajectory – to be free from violence in their own home.

Snout of patience with Brexit coverage

This Brexit saga has been largely media-generated from people like Nick Robinson (Image: PA)

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Someone make this Brexit shambles stop before I throw Peppa Pig in a spiraliser.

I’m not talking about Brexit itself but the wall-to-wall coverage. Please. Enough now.

We get it, everything is “unprecedented” – until the following day when something even more mind-numbingly banal happens that everyone needs to over-hype. Is everyone on Twitter just sitting at home watching the news? No wonder the economy is in the toilet.

I get the feeling that many in the media, who claim to be affronted by this chaos, are privately hoping for a no-deal scenario just because it’ll break up the day in the newsroom.

When will a reporter do the big expose about a gullible population taken in by posh accents, that naively assumed a troupe of privately-educated performing seals must have known what they were doing when they entered Government?

Let’s see Nick Robinson, right, front something like that.

So much of this Brexit saga has been largely media-generated. While there’s been great reporting, investigative journalism and analysis, there’s been twice as much dog meat to sift through.

To think this all began because some hacks in London grew fascinated by the rivalry between two blue-blooded pig-head enthusiasts who went to Eton.

How to breathe life into your day

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Some mornings are just awful. Earlier this week, I was so exhausted after a difficult night with my daughter that I put a bottle of water in my laptop bag with no lid screwed on.

When you begin your day feeling like that, it’s time to stop and breathe. Paying attention to your breath can work wonders.

In a world of constant distraction, such a simple task is more difficult than it sounds. It’s less about breathing and more about awareness.

The goal is to remind yourself that your mind is (even on a good day) completely out of control. As you read these words intrusive thoughts persist and, depending on their nature, your entire mood might shift.

Meditation is about bearing witness to them as opposed to getting too involved.

Because if you are anything like me, you’ll know that 90 per cent of the stuff floating around in your head is utter nonsense.